Skip to main content

Michael Dirda's Desert Island Books

Description: The list was published in the Washington Post on January 12th, 2022. The list is limited to 20th-century prose by English-language authors.

Rank Title Author Added

1

The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

27,746 members

367 reviews

4.1

4 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

2

Cold Comfort Farm

by Stella Gibbons

6,404 members

240 reviews

4

4 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

3

The Man Who Was Thursday

by G. K. Chesterton

7,886 members

192 reviews

3.8

3 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, auldhouse

4

Collected Ghost Stories

2,579 members

45 reviews

4.2

3 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

5

by Vladimir Nabokov

35,201 members

633 reviews

4.1

2 Members: ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

6

by Bruce Chatwin

3,621 members

102 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: ahef1963, auldhouse

7

The Thurber Carnival

by James Thurber

2,824 members

37 reviews

4.2

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

8

2,246 members

35 reviews

3.9

2 Members: ahef1963, auldhouse

9

The Art of Eating

by M. F. K. Fisher

2,022 members

22 reviews

½ 4.3

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

10

by Rafael Sabatini

1,892 members

61 reviews

4.2

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

11

by Frederick Exley

1,201 members

14 reviews

4.1

2 Members: ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

12

The Mouse and His Child

by Russell Hoban

1,152 members

32 reviews

4.2

2 Members: ManWithAnAgenda, auldhouse

13

Performing Flea

by P. G. Wodehouse

146 members

2 reviews

4.1

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

14

Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times

84 members

2 reviews

½ 4.7

2 Members: hipdeep, auldhouse

15

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

16,992 members

313 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

16

by Rudyard Kipling

10,187 members

216 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

17

Nights at the Circus

by Angela Carter

2,937 members

55 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

18

Lud-in-the-Mist

by Hope Mirrlees

2,257 members

61 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

19

The Urth of the New Sun

2,025 members

28 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

20

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

by Chris Van Allsburg

1,833 members

79 reviews

½ 4.5

Member: auldhouse

21

The Moving Toyshop

by Edmund Crispin

1,584 members

70 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

22

Up in the Old Hotel

by Joseph Mitchell

1,570 members

22 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: auldhouse

23

by Wilfred Thesiger

1,391 members

26 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

24

by Thomas Berger

1,349 members

35 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

25

by Evan S. Connell

1,208 members

43 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

26

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1,119 members

34 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: auldhouse

27

by John Dickson Carr

979 members

41 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

28

The Box of Delights

by John Masefield

925 members

22 reviews

4

Member: auldhouse

29

Fancies and Goodnights

by John Collier

818 members

16 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

30

United States: Essays 1952-1992

770 members

8 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

31

A Day with Wilbur Robinson

by William Joyce

618 members

17 reviews

3.9

Member: auldhouse

32

The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe

by Charles Nicholl

596 members

12 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

33

The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus

by Cyril Connolly

559 members

4 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

34

The Geography of the Imagination

by Guy Davenport

552 members

11 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

35

Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal

by J. R. Ackerley

464 members

9 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: auldhouse

36

The Private World of Georgette Heyer

by Jane Aiken Hodge

417 members

15 reviews

4

Member: auldhouse

37

Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man

by Henry Howarth Bashford

417 members

13 reviews

3.8

Member: auldhouse

38

A Childhood: The Biography of a Place

390 members

10 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: auldhouse

39

Shakespeare's Lives

by Samuel Schoenbaum

374 members

7 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

40

Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things

by Gilbert Sorrentino

247 members

7 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

41

On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript

by Robert K. Merton

225 members

8 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

42

Adventures in Unhistory: Conjectures on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends

by Avram Davidson

224 members

5 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

43

Seven Men and Two Others

by Sir Max Beerbohm

197 members

2 reviews

4

Member: auldhouse

44

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

188 members

8 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

45

Last Letters from Hav

186 members

4 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: auldhouse

46

Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould

by Kevin Bazzana

175 members

2 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: auldhouse

47

A Cab at the Door

by V. S. Pritchett

162 members

4 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: auldhouse

48

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives

by Diane Johnson

145 members

2 reviews

4.2

Member: auldhouse

49

Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship

by Robert Craft

106 members

2 reviews

4.1

Member: auldhouse

50

The Complete Firbank (Picador Classics)

by Ronald Firbank

91 members

1 review

4

Member: auldhouse

51

Kipling, Auden and Company: Essays and Reviews, 1935-1964

by Randall Jarrell

82 members

½ 3.5

Member: auldhouse

52

The new Apocrypha: A guide to strange science and occult beliefs

by John Thomas Sladek

80 members

4

Member: auldhouse

53

Lost Property: Memoirs & Confessions of a Bad Boy

by Ben Sonnenberg

76 members

½ 2.7

Member: auldhouse

54

Paris Journal, 1944-1965

by Janet Flanner

71 members

½ 3.5

Member: auldhouse

55

The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh

by Evelyn Waugh

68 members

1 review

3.8

Member: auldhouse

56

Tellers of Tales

by Roger Lancelyn Green

44 members

3.9

Member: auldhouse

57

A.J.A. Symons, His Life and Speculations

by Julian Symons

32 members

4

Member: auldhouse

58

Morreion: A Tale of The Dying Earth

23 members

1 review

½ 3.4

Member: auldhouse

59

The literary life; a scrapbook almanac of the Anglo-American literary scene from 1900 to 1950

by Robert Phelps

22 members

5

Member: auldhouse

60

Jorkens Remembers Africa

by Lord Dunsany

20 members

4.1

Member: auldhouse

61

The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters (Complete set)

by George Lyttelton

9 members

Member: auldhouse

62

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Second Series

by Malcolm Cowley

9 members

Member: auldhouse

About This List

Started: auldhouse
January 2022
Type: Unnumbered

Related Lists

Alberto Manguel's 100 Favorite Books

Current Discussions

None

Related Tags

20th century (1,389) adventure (675) animals (737) British (803) children (728) children's (1,308) children's literature (769) classic (2,043) classics (2,183) England (660) English literature (730) essays (726) fantasy (2,336) fiction (12,759) humor (1,605) India (737) literature (2,093) mystery (1,364) non-fiction (2,103) novel (2,249) read (1,498) short stories (718) to-read (6,571) travel (1,159) true crime (676)

Verdana Standard Verdana Small The Lorax System Standard System Large Georgia Large Text Atkinson